In recent years, public authorities have been gradually tightening controls on various industrial processes for the improved safety of the workers involved in carrying out the processes, while maintaining at least minimal equivalent benefit to those for whom the processes are carried out. Health and safety hazards are continually and increasingly influencing the revision of labor safety standards and one example thereof is the current regulation, in some cities, prohibiting the use of asbestos-containing compositions which create during use an environment for the workers containing suspended carcinogenic asbestos particles that may be inhaled by the workers and contribute to respiratory infections that may have ultimate fatal consequences or undesirable side effects.
In New York City, for example, asbestos-containing sprayed coatings for unfinished interior wall surfaces of concrete or cinder blocks or the like are now banned and building contractors have been engaged in a widespread search for equivalent substitutes that will not only be acceptable functionally, i.e. in the process of handling, deposition and in use, but also will have at least generally comparable economics.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a substitute non-toxic sprayable coating formulation for covering rough unfinished interior wall surfaces that is generally equivalent to the prior formulations containing asbestos and like materials; to provide such a composition having flame-retardant and/or acoustical properties; to provide such a composition having improved adhesion, weathering properties, susceptibility to decorative embossing techniques and coloring pigmentation, as well as chamical resistance and enhanced aging properties; to provide economic advantages over prior similar compositions; to provide a pigment formulation that can be incorporated with additional constituents to produce a sprayable paint composition meeting some or all of the foregoing objectives. Other objects and features will become apparent in the following description and in the appended claims.